The final ESPN X Games took over downtown Los Angeles August 1-4, 2013 in a bittersweet celebration as the X Games will move onto Austin, TX, in the summer of 2014. More than 19,000 fans came out to check out the events and activities which blanketed the L.A. Live event deck, Staples Center, and out further, the Irwindale Event Center which hosted the Skate Big Air events, RallyCross, and a new event, the GYMKHANA featuring two tight, side-by-side car race courses where drivers prove their skills utilizing drifting to get through the course the fastest.
While women’s vert skateboarding competitions had been ended by the X Games, the street competition proved to be just as exciting for the kick-off of the X Games on day 1. Women’s skateboarding is a growing movement and as we’ve proven in our Action Sports Reports and Youth Culture Studies, it is a genre for significant market opportunity as more females want to learn to skate than males among young people between the ages of 13-25-years-old.
At the X Games Women’s Street competition, 10 skaters in two heats of 5 competed in 15 minute jam sessions of 45 seconds per run on a concrete plaza with stair sets, banks, manual pads and ledges. Skaters were judged on skills, tricks, and overall impression by a panel of (all-male) judges to advance to the final round of 6 finalists.
It was a tight match in the end between Brazilian Leticia Bufoni, who has just won the gold medal in Barcelona and in Foz, and Lacey Baker.
In the end, Bufoni who won the Women’s Street with a winning run that included a frontside flip, fakie flip, and backside flip. Lacey Baker came in second for the silver, and Marisa Dal Santo came in third for the bronze.
Unfortunately, skater Rachel Reinhard who was going strong the entire competition, landed badly on her arm off one of the high banks and broke her arm. It was a devastating blow for such a talented skater.
Stay tuned for more highlights from the 11th Summer X Games from Los Angeles.
